WEEKEND HEAD SPIN: HISTORY REPEATING

When I joined my Sifu’s school in 1992 there was around 30 established Instructors / Senior Students, 10 years later as I started to study Biu Gee {what was referred to there as level 3}, there were only 6 senior students ahead of me, and a few years later that became 5 and then 4. Some left because life got in the way but many left because they lost faith in Wing Chun. The last 2 to leave I knew really quite well as they had been instrumental in my training, they where both early 30’s when they left, both had exceptional skills and were fit strong men, so what happened?

It turned out that they had been sparring with some friends that did B.J.J. and they got flogged so they gave up Wing Chun and took up B.J.J. they came to the conclusion that B.J.J. was a more effective Martial Art if you actually needed to fight.

Is it really?

Do we think so?

I do not think B.J.J. is a better Martial Art, I believe that all Martial Arts are equal it is the man that makes the difference, but I think I do know why they thought it was.

Too much Siu Lim Tao.

Too much Yee Chee Kim Yeung Mah

Too much grind, grind, chug, chug Chi Sau.

Too much trying to “Relax”.

There is a {small} place for this approach to training but when it becomes the only approach it develops a lazy and inflexible mind, what defeated them was not B.J.J. per se but dynamic and flexible thinking that comes from setting and solving problems in real time, what defeated them was an open mind to the event that was unfolding and a strong resolve to persevere, what defeated them was that B.J.J. teaches people how to optimise there intention whereas mainstream Wing Chun only talks about it.

All training is task specific, but so often in Wing Chun training “the task” is not fighting, here in Australia more and more Wing Chun students are training what they refer to as the internal aspect of Wing Chun, trying to raise Nim Lik or Mind Force, what they are not learning is how to take a punch or how to hurt people, they are not learning how to optimise their intention.

Mind Force is the rallying call of the new age Wing Chun.

When I hear people talking of Mind Force or Nim Lik in the context of any style of Kung Fu all I can think of is that history is beginning to repeat itself.

In China, in the summer of 1900, the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, made up of many of the best Kung Fu Masters of the era, walked steadfastly towards the European guns surrounding the foreign legation buildings in Beijing, confident that their Iron Shirt, Chi, Nim Lik, Mind Force or what ever you wish to call it would repel the invaders bullets.

It didn’t.

They died.

No Europeans were surprised.

Minds, even forceful ones, are made for thinking, it is bodies we need for fighting.

In a violent situation a rigid body under the control of a flexible mind will always destroy a flexible body with a rigid mind.